Eye Candy #306 - "The Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian"

The Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian: Not nearly as bad as some of the reviews would have you believe, but definitely lacking the umph of “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe”.  Based on the second book of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books, “Prince Caspian” even as a novel, is a step-down from the first book.  Thousands of years have passed in Narnia since the Pevensie children left, with a race of humans called Spaniard, er, I mean, Telmarines have invaded and cast the natives out into the wilderness.  Enter Prince Caspian, latest Telmarine in line for the throne, except his uncle covets it for himself and is willing to foment war with the Narnians to get it.  He summons the Pevensies back to Narnia to help him stop the Telmarines and restores the Narnians.  Good things about this movie - some of the action set pieces are very well done, some of the voice talents (including Eddie Izzard) are very good.  Bad things about this movie - length (it’s over 2 hours long); unnecessary Spanish accents on some characters (particularly Caspian), flat character depictions not supported by the text or the previous movie (I privately call this movie “The Chronicles of Narnia - Peter is an @$$”), and a general lethargy that doesn’t translate the urgency to the plot to urgency in the film.  I understand that book 3 is now in pre-production, based on “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”, so we’re not done with Narnia yet.  Woodchuck sez, “Not awful, just average.”